Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE JOURNEY ON, by GEORGE CABOT LODGE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE JOURNEY ON, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: My lips shall kiss thy brows!
Last Line: As we together take the long, long journey on!
Subject(s): Travel; Journeys; Trips


I.

My lips shall kiss thy brows!
Thy blood -- now in my heart perchance the pulse of it! --
Shall fall upon my face from all the thorns.

Of their dead lives who killed and felt the scorn,
Thy pity, -- all its justice, vista, faith,
How utterly dim, unguessed, or briefly seen
As tho' a starred night thro' a wall's interstice glimpsed or sea-view
caught between the crouching hills, --
When once, in some long-hence, prepared arrival,
Realized and known by me, in me comprised,
Shall round the soul's slow spheres and lift a larger horizon!

Then all the strewing of light in all thy ways,
(Now even I glimpse thee by the self-same light)
Shall flow between our eyes incessantly;
Then as my lips gleam crimson from thy brows
And feel thy lips -- the comrades kiss at last!


II.

Long hence thou shalt acclaim me!
In retrospect of mine how many a god! --
Fauns, stream-side nymphs, in twilights of mid-May
Shy hamadryads and reluctant ghosts,
Ishtar in Babylon who trod
Hearts of fierce lovers in her wine-press out,
Setebos, Hapi and the phallic Min,
Thoth with a mystic wisdom, Iahveh, Baal,
Ra, and the glorious, strange moon-father Sin,
Golden Apollo with the throbbing throat,
White Aphrodite in the mid-seas blue --
These, and of all my mythic infancy the dim and elder gods,
Gods that no legend hints, no indirection proves,
I, journeyed on in paths by them untrodden,
On seas unhinted in their charts, their indications, prophecies,
After an age of years turning, resume, interpret:
These, now with negligent arms about my neck,
Grave heads against my breast, deep eyes to mine,
Come face to face at last, at last acclaim me!

So thou, Essenian of the later Gods,
As these my childhood's aspirations one by one,
After long journeys done, dreams realized, thoughts explored, faint indications proved,
Meet me and mate me with deep, quiet eyes --
I knowing we all are equal Gods at last --
And kiss my naked brows and send me forth
Vaster by them, by love and knowledge of them --
So thou! -- the pause returned, the vaster task resumed, the distance measured, --
Surely my soul shall find thee somewhere waiting then!
Surely mine eyes, sphered to how vast a light,
Shall tally thine, surely my neck shall feel
The strength and tenderness of thy sweet pierced hands,
Surely thy brows shall share with mine -- we equal Gods at last! --
the sacred burden of thy human blood,
The while thy sad, pierced feet, in all my ways,
Equally go with even pace with mine, by open roads, by open seas vistaed
before us, still untrod, uncrossed by thee or me,
As we together take the long, long journey on!





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